Reduced gravity cryogenic propellant tank re-supply simulation and geyser prediction
Abstract
Computational modeling of microgravity geyser phenomena is considered in an effort to establish the maturity of one computational tool for its simulation. Verification and validation of the tool against data for a turbulent channel flow, data for the spread of a selfpreserving turbulent axisymmetric jet, and experiment data from geyser flows in a drop tower experiment is presented. A mesh convergence study demonstrates that the mesh used in previous studies was not quite sufficiently refined to produce mesh independent simulations. Critical review of the drop tower experiment and previous studies revealed that more accurate definition of the experiment parameters could be made. Surprisingly, simulations using the improved parameters and the better mesh were in poorer agreement with the experimentally measured geyser height than has been previously reported. With the insight gained from the critical review of the experiment, alterations to a previously proposed correlation for the prediction of geyser height are proposed. The new correlation outperforms its predecessors by producing an RMS error of only 0.09 when used to predict the geyser heights reported for the experiment.
Publication Title
43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit - Meeting Papers
Recommended Citation
Simmons, B., Marchetta, J., & Hochstein, J. (2005). Reduced gravity cryogenic propellant tank re-supply simulation and geyser prediction. 43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit - Meeting Papers, 10317-10338. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/facpubs/14943
